I met with In-Hwa yesterday at Starbucks and she greeted me by saying that our last tutoring session was very "helpful", a word that she learned how to pronounce last week! This time we thought it was a good idea to practice speech. Her reading and writing levels are much higher than her speaking level, so the goal for the day was to help improve her fluidity in English. We came up with several topics and I had her share her views on the subject as well as the norms in South Korea versus the norms in the US. Occasionally, I would give some input on the subject. The first topic was if alcohol should be illegal, the second was if gay marriage should be allowed, the third was if sex education should be taught in school, and the fourth was if both men and women should know how to cook.
From her answers, I saw what her trouble points were. Although she knows how to pronounce sounds like the 'th' sound, she gets nervous when she speaks and feels the need to speak faster without articulating all the sounds in a word. I did not correct her mistakes unless something was totally incomprehensible like "car accident", for example. By the end of the session she said that talking so much helped her loosen up and that she really needed the practice. She explained how her brain works as translator and that's why she takes a little longer to respond to questions.
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